Following
my
first contact with Sony
Ericsson's Xperia X1 Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional smartphone during the
recent
Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, recently I had some more quality time
with Sony Ericsson's first Windows Mobile device. Nearly everything is said and
written about the Xperia X1 but this time, I also had the chance to dive deeper
into the device, to record a short video.
The Sony Ericsson Xperia X1 does everything, a state-of-the-art Windows Mobile
smartphone is able to provide these days (and even more). It features a
slide-out QWERTY keyboard and an ultra fast Qualcomm 7200A CPU at 520 MHz,
supports quadband GSM/GPRS/EDGE and triband UMTS/HSDPA/HSUPA as well as
Bluetooth 2.0+EDR, WiFi b/g and GPS.

The massive memory of 128 MB RAM and 512 MB ROM can be expanded with microSD
cards (the slot is protected by the battery cover but the cards are
hot-swappable) and the touchscreen features still uncommon WVGA resolution at
800 x 480 pixel. The autofocus camera on the backside features 3.2 megapixel
while the front facing camera supports the typical VGA resolution for UMTS video
telephony:

At a weight of 144 grams including the 1500 mAh Li-Ion Polymer battery, the
Xperia X1 measures 110.0 x 17.0 x 53.0 mm and the prototype I got my hands on
felt rocking-solid. The 5-way D-Pad also works, similar to the Samsung SGH-i780, as an optical joystick.

On the left side, the Xperia X1 features a mini USB plug which is used for
sync and charge as well as a button which rotates the screen. On the right, the
device features the volume rocker on the top and the camera shutter on the
bottom. On the top, the device holds a 3.5 cm plug for stereo headsets and the
power button.
On both sides, left and right, the device features 4 LEDs in total which
signalize incoming calls, etc.

On the video above you might have noticed that the device doesn't seems to be
the fastest yet but please keep in mind that it was a prototype. We still have
the word from Sony Ericsson that the X1 will take benefit from some kind of
graphic hardware acceleration.

Unfortunately this meeting with the Xperia X1 was way too short and I'm
definitely looking forward the next time, I hopefully have the chance to test it
a little bit longer.

What's the sensitivity of the screen compared to other WM devices, same, better, worse.... I noticed you had some trouble clicking a few times. The only thing preventing this device from being a true Iphone Killer will always be the lack of a capacitive touch screen.

It's still an awesome device! Great Video! The more I see this device the more I'm impressed with it. I can't wait for this device to come out, 800x480!!!!

If you get a chance to play with it more, please elaborate on finger touch screen sensitivity and try it outside in the sunlight. Is it any better than other WM devices or just as useless on a sunny day?

Posted by jose on 23.04.08 - 05:48:40

this phone has all the things im looking for in a device..touchscreen,slide out qwerty keyboard,wifi,bluetooth, just to name a few..im impressed by the video even though its just a prototype.any idea when it is going to be released? im thinking about buying another smartphonebut i want to wait for the x1 if its not too far away..also any idea on what price range it might be?

Whats better than on my Toshiba G900 with the same resolution?More internal storage -doesn't matter much.Less weight -I don't mind.GPS -o.k. one argument, I need an external mouse. But this to buy a new PPC?

For me, the device is nice, but without vga-out it is not such great. VGA out as the IMate ultimate or the flame has opens much more opportunities! That would be usefull.

Posted by rigel on 24.04.08 - 09:54:24

Some observations/comments/questions:

1. Switching between apps seems painfully slow. Hopefully this is just a prototype glitch

2. The optical joystick looks cumbersome to use; give me a scroll wheel any day

3. I noticed you hardly touched the screen

4. related to #2, is the D-pad 5-way, i.e., does tapping the optical joystick equate to a middle button press on a typical D-pad? And are there up and down buttons on the D-pad? I only noticed you pressing the left-right buttons.

Posted by Arne Hess on 24.04.08 - 12:09:39

@John452: The sensitivity of the screen is roughly comparable to HTC Touch screens. It works well and what you are referring to was more or less a slow response time of the device itself and not the displays fault. You can see the sensitivity when I touched the "aquarium screen" with the fishes where I firmly touched the display but it responded with the green marks.Next time I will have another chance, I will try it in the sun light. Last time, it was raining anyway...

@rigel: Yes, around the touch sensitive action button, you have a physical D-Pad which you can press up/down, left/right. The action button can be pressed physically or your slide your finger on it to use it as an optical joystick. So the X1 offers the full range of navigation possibilities, unlike the Samsung i780 which offers an optical joystick only.Regarding the screen sensitivity, please see my replay above.

Posted by SE K850 on 24.04.08 - 15:06:02

Love it, finally a Windows Mobile smartphone with style.

Posted by Miguel on 24.04.08 - 20:40:35

Pardon me while I wipe my drool away. I've got an hp hw6515 which is beginning to show its age and this looks like a perfect replacement. GPS, wifi, Flash, 3G and a truly gorgeous screen make this a fantastic looking device. A few questions:

- How easy is it to press the top row of keys on the keyboard? It strikes me that if the screen portion of the device is too close to the keys it will be challenging to press those top ones easily.- Any hint of voice dialing?- What kind of battery drain did you experience while you were playing with it? Concurrently, can you draw any expectations of total battery life from your experience?

Posted by Arne Hess on 26.04.08 - 11:15:36

Miguel wrote:

- How easy is it to press the top row of keys on the keyboard? It strikes me that if the screen portion of the device is too close to the keys it will be challenging to press those top ones easily.

In the 5 minutes I was able to test the keyboard I haven't noticed any major problems with the top-row. But this is definitely something which needs further tests, like the whole keyboard.

- Any hint of voice dialing?

Haven't seen anything yet but again, the SW packages is far away from being final

- What kind of battery drain did you experience while you were playing with it? Concurrently, can you draw any expectations of total battery life from your experience?

Sorry but the 20 minutes (where from I recorded the video 10 minutes) were definitely too short to say anything about battery. This needs some further tests as well.

Posted by centuryEGG on 26.04.08 - 16:03:06

I didn'e see any demo on cam or pic shooting, someone mentioned about flash, is there really one? I couldn't notice any on the back when you flip over. If there is a xenon flash like the K seriesn SE phone, I will surely place my money there. Thanks for sharing, love the phone.

Cheers

Posted by Arne Hess on 27.04.08 - 15:49:45

@centuryEGG: Yes, the SE X1 has a - well, let us say - "photo light" as you can see in the video but which you might better see at the hands-on photos from the Mobile World Congress.Don't expect to get a Xenon flash as we have it with SE's CyberShot mobiles but quite typical for Windows Mobile smartphones, this seems to be a LED only...

Posted by bnycastro on 28.04.08 - 05:48:18

does it have graphics hardware acceleration drivers? hopefully Qualcomm/ATI/HTC doesn't make the same mistakes with the X1 as they did with the current crop of HTC devices.

I also like the fact that it's microSD instead of mem stick micro [m2], and it seems to have miniUSB as well.

Posted by Arne Hess on 28.04.08 - 08:45:04

I was told that hardware acceleration for the graphics system will be part of the final release and it makes sense. The WVGA screen needs some boost, otherwise the screen rendering is too slow for such a power device. I have no official confirmation, just the word from the product manager from the Mobile World Congress.

Posted by brian18 on 04.05.08 - 17:03:17

Does the phone comes with GPS and aGPS or aGPS only?

Posted by Everyone_12 on 15.05.08 - 21:48:04

On behalf of the world, I wish to say that the music added to that video is the worst I have ever heard.